Told After Supper | Page 6

me very
much. As for my Aunt Maria, I do not know when I shall care to see
her again. I should have thought Aunt Maria might have known me
better.
But although injustice--gross injustice, as I shall explain later on--has
been done to myself, that shall not deter me from doing justice to others;
even to those who have made unfeeling insinuations. I will do justice to
Aunt Maria's hot veal pasties, and toasted lobsters, followed by her
own special make of cheesecakes, warm (there is no sense, to my
thinking, in cold cheesecakes; you lose half the flavour), and washed
down by Uncle John's own particular old ale, and acknowledge that
they were most tasty. I did justice to them then; Aunt Maria herself
could not but admit that.
After supper, Uncle brewed some whisky-punch. I did justice to that
also; Uncle John himself said so. He said he was glad to notice that I
liked it.
Aunt went to bed soon after supper, leaving the local curate, old Dr.
Scrubbles, Mr. Samuel Coombes, our member of the County Council,
Teddy Biffles, and myself to keep Uncle company. We agreed that it
was too early to give in for some time yet, so Uncle brewed another
bowl of punch; and I think we all did justice to that--at least I know I
did. It is a passion with me, is the desire to do justice.
We sat up for a long while, and the Doctor brewed some gin-punch
later on, for a change, though I could not taste much difference myself.
But it was all good, and we were very happy--everybody was so kind.

Uncle John told us a very funny story in the course of the evening. Oh,
it WAS a funny story! I forget what it was about now, but I know it
amused me very much at the time; I do not think I ever laughed so
much in all my life. It is strange that I cannot recollect that story too,
because he told it us four times. And it was entirely our own fault that
he did not tell it us a fifth. After that, the Doctor sang a very clever
song, in the course of which he imitated all the different animals in a
farmyard. He did mix them a bit. He brayed for the bantam cock, and
crowed for the pig; but we knew what he meant all right.
I started relating a most interesting anecdote, but was somewhat
surprised to observe, as I went on, that nobody was paying the slightest
attention to me whatever. I thought this rather rude of them at first,
until it dawned upon me that I was talking to myself all the time,
instead of out aloud, so that, of course, they did not know that I was
telling them a tale at all, and were probably puzzled to understand the
meaning of my animated expression and eloquent gestures. It was a
most curious mistake for any one to make. I never knew such a thing
happen to me before.
Later on, our curate did tricks with cards. He asked us if we had ever
seen a game called the "Three Card Trick." He said it was an artifice by
means of which low, unscrupulous men, frequenters of race-meetings
and such like haunts, swindled foolish young fellows out of their
money. He said it was a very simple trick to do: it all depended on the
quickness of the hand. It was the quickness of the hand deceived the
eye.
He said he would show us the imposture so that we might be warned
against it, and not be taken in by it; and he fetched Uncle's pack of
cards from the tea-caddy, and, selecting three cards from the pack, two
plain cards and one picture card, sat down on the hearthrug, and
explained to us what he was going to do.
He said: "Now I shall take these three cards in my hand--so--and let
you all see them. And then I shall quietly lay them down on the rug,
with the backs uppermost, and ask you to pick out the picture card. And
you'll think you know which one it is." And he did it.
Old Mr. Coombes, who is also one of our churchwardens, said it was
the middle card.
"You fancy you saw it," said our curate, smiling.

"I don't 'fancy' anything at all about it," replied Mr. Coombes, "I tell
you it's the middle card. I'll bet you half a dollar it's the middle card."
"There you are, that's just what I was explaining to you," said our
curate, turning to the rest of us; "that's the way these foolish young
fellows that I was speaking of are lured on to lose their